Nepal Earthquake

Hello beloved people  :: )

Thank you for your prayers, thoughts and emails. What with a stroke of luck, the best of company, an emergency-prepared team of professors, and strings moving abroad, in Nepal, and with the gods, I've made my way to Madrid where I'm staying with Julio and his family. 

Last fall my soccer team won the football league at school, and got vouchers for a free breakfast at the Hyatt as a prize. The Student Society didn't get around to giving us the vouchers until a little over a month ago, but I wasn't in a hurry to go to the Hyatt either. Well, after the last week of class, a couple of friends, Julio and I, decided to use our vouchers our last Saturday before exams and break would kick in. We were planning to eat and work on essays, so we headed over before 8am under a cloudy grim sky, stuffed ourselves with the buffet, hot chocolate, eggs, muffins and everything. It was around noon, and we were waiting for a nepali friend to show up before heading out when the earthquake of 7.9 struck. It escalated in no time, and me and an Irish friend huddled near a pillar, while Julio and the others ducked underneath a table nearby. People were running out the building, we could hear glass breaking, and someone slipped in panic and cut himself all over with broken glass. Luckily we stayed put for a little while, waiting for the earthquake to pass, since there were also tiles and pieces of cement falling from the 5 story building above. 

Finally we ran out to the yard, the earth trembling incessantly but with lesser intensity. The Hyatt was actually the meeting place for my school in case of disaster, since the building was made to endure earthquakes of up to 8.5 and has wide open spaces away from light posts, buildings and walls. So we stayed there for the rest of the afternoon as people showed up one by one with all kinds of stories and impressions on their faces. The Academic Director was timing the aftershocks to see when it would be safe to go back home, but these were occurring every 10 minutes on the clock for the following six hours. The Hyatt finally offered to let us stay on their grounds, either in the lobby or on the tennis court. While their guests camped out at the lobby, we thought it better to sleep out in the tennis court, since there were predictions and fear of another earthquake coming. People improvised sleeping quarters with pool towels, table cloths, and seat covers, and we dragged an old carpet from the grass where the Hyatt staff had kindly let us sit throughout the day. A friend managed to run home for a couple of sleeping bags, so Julio and I could share one. When it started drizzling in the night, we and 3 other people wrapped ourselves up in the carpet like a taco and managed to get a little sleep, with the ground shaking, and people occasionally running out of the lobby into the night. 

It was all pretty unreal, and we had no idea of the magnitude and casualties of the earthquake. We had to persuade some of our friends to stay at the Hyatt because they thought nothing more would happen and they could go back home or out to eat somewhere. Although we knew some people had died, and some buildings downtown had collapsed, we really had no idea of just how devastating the earthquake had been. Around two or three on Sunday another big aftershock hit of 6.8 or so, while some classmates were assessing their houses for structural damage. We'd also gone home to assess our house that morning with some guidelines of what to look for provided to us by the school staff. We found out that the building was fine–it didn't have a single scratch–but the wall down by the street had collapsed killing seven passersby. Had we been at our place, the instinct would have been to get out of the house as soon as possible, and into the street away from the houses, but we couldn't have imagined an innocent brick wall two meters high could collapse and kill so many. Many of the casualties in the city must have occurred in this way (in addition to actual buildings and temples collapsing) because walls have no structure or support and are the first to topple over.

Nevertheless, and to my surprise, our neighborhood seemed quite fine. Not only were most of the buildings undamaged, but people seemed unaltered, a few shops were open, and the stupa had a good amount of people going around doing kora with their rosaries in hand. Boudha is actually quite recent as a neighborhood. It was built only within the past 20 or so years, at the time when our own monastery//academic building was built near the stupa. Since there was an influx of tourists at the time, locals were building higher and higher buildings with rooftop views to rent out, meaning they were solid buildings made with good cement–which is what kept them upright at this time. The contrast between the huddled tourists at the Hyatt and the nepali and tibetan people at the neighborhood was palpable and contagious. The sun was finally out and we could allow ourselves a quick sigh of relief which mirrored the people around us. Of course this was only the aftermath. We later found out there had been a massive congregation at a neighboring monastery with many many tibetans sitting on the floor, and when the earthquake hit, people scrambled to get out in a stampede, trampling over our elderly school librarian. We met her at our monastery grounds that morning, and although she said her rib cage ached a little, she teared up only when she mentioned that the shrine room at such monastery had cracked and had serious structural damage. 

After giving a quick look at the house, we walked a little beyond to look for our brazilian friend George, who nobody had heard about or seen. We walked by little fields with people hanging out under improvised tents, and got to George's house which was locked and quiet. A man looked out from behind a gate on the neighboring slope and asked if we needed help or a place to stay. We said we were fine and were looking for a friend, and soon the word was going around "George! George! he's here!" and incredulously we saw George appear, walking around the gate with a smile spread across his face. He was fine, he was camping out on the field with his neighbors and didn't want or need refuge at the Hyatt. His community was passing a thermos of tea constantly around, and had stricken up a fire to cook hot lentils and rice for everyone. He also offered us a place at the field to stay, but we weren't sure how long their provisions would last and preferred to make our way back to the Hyatt. Nevertheless this made an impression on me, which followed us back to the Hyatt, of how extremely kind and communal these people were. 

If we had to be stuck in a devastating earthquake with more than seven thousand casualties anywhere else around the world, this was definitely the best place to be. Rather than pillaging and breaking through stores and houses, people were sharing what food they had and helping each other set up improvised tents. I couldn't vow for what would happen in the following days or months, but for now people were so extremely kind and calm, and as I said, in a "better" place than the luxurious, earthquake-proof Hyatt Regency where fear and anxiety were evident. We might think we were better off at the Hyatt because there were water storehouses and accessible toilets, but I think community bonds were also doing their job, and Boudha felt safer than any developed country might after such a big fright. I hope and pray that that may last throughout the coming months, as Nepal slowly recovers.

While Kathmandu received press and attention throughout the world, the villages were the most heavily devastated. A spanish friend of ours is a helicopter pilot in Nepal and told us that 90% of the houses in the villages collapsed during the earthquake, the roads were blocked by enormous rocks which fell from the mountains above, and these were the places most difficult to reach with medicine and food provisions. While it is said that the government in Nepal is attending to Kathmandu and neighboring hindu villages first (due to accessibility and religious affiliation), many tibetan villages with undocumented refugees do not even have official numbers of deceased and affected people, since they are not registered in official documents. Nepal's political ties with China even prevented a Taiwanese plane from landing at the airport which was loaded with aid directed particularly for the tibetan people. But in the end these things backfire, and the tibetans are receiving significant amounts of foreign aid, since there are so many (tibetan) Buddhist organizations in Nepal with links all around the world. Our monastery, for instance, has taken advantage of its monastic community (which has many people from the villages with family and community ties) and its international affiliation to organize trucks of monastic and lay volunteers to head out to these remote villages with medical aid and food provisions. Some of my friends stayed behind and are going to these villages as well, posting photos on facebook and sharing some of the stories they've come across along the way.

Well, with many phone calls, and strokes of luck all along the way which I won't spell out here, I was taken in by the Spanish Embassy and flown to India and now Spain. Nobody from my school seems to have been hurt other than the librarian, even though my classmates were spread all over Kathmandu during the earthquake, in Patan, at buildings downtown, at a tattoo convention, at their rooftops and local restaurants, ritual ceremonies and so on. School cancelled exams and have essays on hold while people make their way back to their countries and Nepal stabilizes in the aftermath. I don't know when or where classes will resume next semester, but they'll send out a notification sometime during the summer when they can make a better estimate of the situation and living conditions in Nepal. 

There are a few nepali and tibetan people I know that were fine during and after the earthquake, but some of them currently don't have a passport to leave the country and go to India and which I worry about and pray for their health and safety. But again, I trust the community bonds will keep them safe, and that foreign aid will make its way to all those who are in need. 

There was an interview with a fruit seller that Julio read online. The journalist was asking the fruit seller in Nepal whether she would sell her fruit for a higher price due to the earthquake and its subsequent sequels, and she said: "But that would be unethical! Now is when people are in most need, so how could I take advantage of the situation and demand a higher price?". I don't know how long people will be able to afford such ethics and compassion, but the rehydration salts I bought the day before I left Nepal cost 10 rupees a piece––exactly the price I payed a year ago in May.

May all be auspicious and virtue prevail, as the saying goes.

དགེའོ་དགེའོ་དགེའོ་

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers.

First morning on the tennis court, with the Hyatt in the background

Mexican, Spanish, Irish and Julio. Our Ukrainian left sometime in the night.

In preparation for the second night, with threats of more earthquakes and a storm coming in from India

Hyatt lobby

Heading out to assess our houses

A neighboring field where my landlord set up camp with others

The wall that toppled over right next to my house

A vigil for Nepal in the town square of Madrid